The Simple Secret To Marketing Like a Rockstar If you want to make sales, you need to connect with your clients. This is the secret sauce that great marketing gets right, and it has nothing to do with how big (or small) your budget is.

Like most kids, in my final year of high school I had to make a decision about my future; make a call about my career path. My head proclaimed: "Law!' My guts rebelled: "Acting, yeah!'

My folks shrieked: "Acting? Do you intend on having a mortgage in your own name in your lifetime? You'll never be able to afford a medical aid.' Aside, but purposefully audible: "He's never going to move out of home. Is he?'

So, I made a compromise. I studied a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in marketing communication and when I completed that formality, I chose "acting, yeah!'

Google: "Acting school Los Angeles'.

Result: TVI Actor's Studio just outside Hollywood, paid my deposit, packed a large, hard-coated Delsey suitcase and moved to The Valley for six months, to ensure that Future Mike couldn't resent the decisions made by Past Mike.

Those six months comprised: Drinking sake and barbecuing with Counting Crows' Adam Duritz while he orchestrated acoustic magic on his guitar; eating home-made chocolate chip cookies baked by the sweet hands of Teri Hatcher when Desperate Housewives was the most popular TV series on the planet; smashing Grey Goose on the rocks during road trips to Vegas, ululating: "The Goose is looooooooose', with my housemate Chris; ordering Animal Style Double Doubles from In-N-Out Burger but, most importantly, falling in love with the natural narcotic of stand-up comedy.

What. A. Rush. Pit of your stomach sickness, churning from line delivery, converting into convulsions of laughter, or the agony of the opposite side of the spectrum — the silent onstage assassination. Hopefully it's the former.

Connecting with your clients

Stand-up and marketing are inextricably linked. This premise is how I live my career. Every meeting is an opportunity to leverage humour in order to make an impact. Laughter is my gateway drug to new business. Also, the road to branded content creation is paved and then signposted in the fork of either "Emotion' or "Humour'.

A decently written story — TV or YouTube commercial — with a quality DOP at the helm, accompanied by an orchestral score, can elevate a mediocre concept to Cannes Bronze status. The line between funny and farcical, however, is so fine.

Consider a comedian standing on stage at a club, squinting out into the blinding lights and judgemental faces of a multi-demographic audience, about to open his mouth and croak on stage for the very first time.

This also happens to be an analogy for the scenario facing the rookie social media community manager before he posts a hashtag-TBT, hashtag-blessed, hashtag-yawn piece of unoriginal content from a calendar, signed off by a marketing manager who doesn't think their target market is on Twitter because they "definitely aren't'.

Judy Carter, author of The Comedy Bible, simplifies the writing of comedic material into two components:

• Premise
• Act-out

It sounds too simplistic. It isn't. We like to complicate things in the world and business, in particular, to make us seem more impressive, smarter, to elevate ourselves. It's about being a big dick, or as someone far more eloquent than I described it — Ego. **Hat tip to Freud.**

Comedy and communication

Back to comedy and communication. In both settings — whether you are looking to connect with an audience in a comedy club environment or engage with a target market in your next advertising campaign — it is imperative that you determine the key insight, truth or premise of your material.

When I started doing stand-up in US venues, I would open on the topic of accents, as my accent was my obvious USP or differentiator when communicating to an American audience.

"Hi. My name is Mike and I'm from South Africa. That's why I have an accent. And, what's weird about accents is chicks LOVE accents' — truth (premise). Regardless of the background of my audience — age, sex, location, creed, or affluence — they identify with the statement that I have an accent and consciously or subconsciously they agree with my words or copy (if we are referring to a campaign).

The second part pertains to the acting-out of the funny; the crafting of the humour. This requires a slick delivery and commitment to the idea in order to generate audience laughter.

So, we have the premise, then we transition — immediately — into the act-out to connect the dots between truth and funny within the audience members' minds. Comedy is dependent on what you first tell, then show your audience, and eventually how your performance becomes a catalyst for their own imagination to carry the chuckle to its limits. When we package these elements together, the execution becomes:

Premise: "Hi my name is Mike and I'm from South Africa. That's why I have an accent. What's weird about accents is chicks LOVE accents.'

Premise part two: "You can be Shrek, but if you're packing an accent, you're getting some ass!'

Act-out. Left hand behind head. Pelvic thrusts while speaking seductively into the microphone with a Scottish accent á la Shrek, simulating a movement synonymous with making sexy time: "Oooooh, that'll do, Donkey. That'll do.'

Finding a connection

There are few things more powerful in this world than words that disrupt the audience thought process. Donkey-ass puns, turning Shrek's line of affirmation for Donkey — from its intended feature film usage — on its head, by making it smartly sexual; generating mass hysteria from a group of previously disconnected individuals, now connected through the universal language of laughter.

The best advertising in the world does exactly this. It takes an insight (premise) that connects with you as an individual, forces you to nod your head in agreement, and then leverages a powerfully constructed set of copy lines or imagery to emotionally move you.

Laughter, goosebumps, or the development of a lump in your throat. Effective communication is something that facilitates catching feelings. Whether you are on stage delivering lines, or at your keyboard posting snaps, tweets or status updates, every character that comprises a word of each phrase needs to be a purposeful paragraph composition — not just a tick box on a to do list of monthly KPIs.

This is an excerpt from Mike Sharman's book, The Best Dick: A Candid Account of Building a $1 million Business.